「Uncategorized」カテゴリーアーカイブ

Guest “home”

Like Sands Through The Hourglass, so are the… rotation of my housemates.

One of the first good traits you’ll hear about living in a guesthouse is that you are able to meet people from around the world and this IS true.  You get to know their culture, their food, their living style and maybe even a bit of their language.  But most of all, you get to know them, meaning these interesting and worldly people all become your friends.  You eat together, drink together, play together, learn together, cook together, study together, and generally do the things you would do with your family.  However, one of the less desirable traits of the guesthouse is that all these people are on a relatively short time limit — AKA their visas expire.  I’m no different but I have been fortunate enough to get a long visa with stable income while a majority of the people around me are students, people on their working holidays or in-between moves/jobs, so the guest house is really just a bit of a layover.

You’re probably thinking, “So, what’s your point?”  What I’m trying to say is that these people are the reason I’m not searching for a tiny 4 tatami mat studio to live in.  Basically all these people are what makes this guesthouse a home.  While I look forward to each and every new housemate, I miss the people that have left.   But I’m not going to get too sentimental on you; after all, I can just send them a facebook message.

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Vacation in Japan

This year I will be having a visitor,  my mother.  this will be her first time overseas so I will be taking her to many places to visit.   The first place will be to see the Pacific ocean.  I will be attempting to take her to many different places, not necessarily tourist spots either because I find sometimes that the off-beaten path is more attractive and I wind up finding many more interesting things to see and do.  Well, I will see what happens.  I should have pretty interesting pictures to show for this vacation.

The new guy

A new guy started and joined our team. We all went out drinking and got into all kinds of scrapes. We went to a lot of clubs and danced a lot. Both my firends liked dancing like me. Later they left Japan but we still keep in touch. I remember this other guy too, he was cool, we would go to live band night and he would play the guitar. ~We also met lots of other forieners there too. It was kinda cool.

Later that month

We started playing poker together in the tokyo poker championships. I suck at poker but enjoyed the free drinks. After that we went clubbinbg and had absolutly no money so we had to try and share my 1000 yen and hold our empty bottles all night for fear of being thrown out of the club. We met lots of people.

My first day at work

I started work and on my lunch break I went to lotteria for the first time in my life. While I was in there a guy shouted hello to me. He looked Japanese, but he was Canadian. He said he worked at the smae place as me and called me on the fact of not recognising him as a foriener. He seemed quite proud.

First day at work

I went to work in a three-piece suit as they told me to look smart. I looked around and everyone was wearing shirts with no ties. To say I was overdressed is an understatement.

The next day

The next day I went drinking with my friend in a shot bar. It was basically a small door in a wall that led to some kind of secret bar. I chatted to a few random people and my frined seemed to knoiw ebveryone. We sat with some locals and chatted. The bar had a wide range of clientel and everyone seemed out of place, including me

The other day

The other day I met up with my friend and we went to kareoke. We tried to go and do some archery beforehand but the place was closed so we are gonna go on another day. We went to a local department store andbought a frizby which threw around for a while and then it broke. Later, I met my friends and we sang kareoke as we drank in an izakia. It was cool

Spring is probably the best time of year to be in Japan. The temperatures are warm but not hot, there’s not too much rain, and March-April brings the justly famous cherry blossoms and is a time of revelry and festivals. Just watch out for Golden Week (April 27 to May 6), the longest holiday of the year, when everybody travels and everything is booked full.

Summer starts with a dreary rainy season in June and turns into a steam bath in July-August, with extreme humidity and the temperature heading as high as 40°C. O-Bon (mid-August), when everybody is on the road again, is probably the worst possible time to visit. Avoid, or do as the Japanese do and head to northern Hokkaido or the mountains of Chubu and Tohoku to escape.

Autumn – Fall, starting in September, is a close second to spring. Temperatures become more tolerable, fair days are common and fall colors can be just as impressive as cherry blossoms.

Winter is a good time to go skiing or hot-spring hopping, but as the Japanese have yet to figure out the wonders of central heating, it’s often miserably cold indoors.

Winter wonderland

Spring is probably the best time of year to be in Japan. The temperatures are warm but not hot, there’s not too much rain, and March-April brings the justly famous cherry blossoms and is a time of revelry and festivals.

Summer starts with a dreary rainy season in June and turns into a steam bath in July-August, with extreme humidity and the temperature heading as high as 40°C. O-Bon (mid-August), when everybody is on the road again, is probably the worst possible time to visit.


Autumn – Fall, starting in September, is a close second to spring. Temperatures become more tolerable, fair days are common and fall colors can be just as impressive as cherry blossoms.

Winter is a good time to go skiing or hot-spring hopping, but as the Japanese have yet to figure out the wonders of central heating, it’s often miserably cold indoors.